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College basketball play-by-play statistics

Explaining the Data

The team pages contain a table listing the shooting distribution for each player. The example shown below comes from the
Texas team page from December 28, 2011. Let's use this example as an illustration to help understand
the table.

Player

FGA

TS%

%Shots at Rim

FG% at Rim

%Assisted at Rim

%Shots 2pt Jumpers

FG% 2pt Jumpers

%Assisted 2pt Jumpers

%Shots 3pt

FG% 3pt

%assisted 3pt

FTA/FGA

FT%

J'Covan Brown

188

0.548

23%

65%

39%

36%

40%

37.0%

41%

36%

50%

0.24

78%

The first column lists the name of each player. This is pretty self explanatory.

The second column, FGA, gives the number of field goal attempts for each player in the play-by-play database.

TS% stands for true shooting percentage. This is a statistic that accounts for the different values of two point shots
and three point shots, as well as including the value added by made free throws. A more in depth explanation is
here. Generally, a number of about 0.55 or greater is pretty good.

%Shots at Rim described the percentage of a player's field goal attempts that are either classified as layups, dunks, or
tip-ins in the play-by-play data.

FG% at Rim is just the field goal percentage on shots at the rim.

%Assisted at Rim is the percentage of made shots at the rim that were assisted. This provides some information as to
how often a player is receiving passes that set them up to score at the rim compared with how often that player creates his
own shot at the rim.

The columns for two point jump shots (2pt Jumpers) and three point jump shots (3pt)
are derived in a similar fashion to the at the rim data.

FTA/FGA is the ratio of free throw attempts to field goal attempts. This is a simple way of measuring
the frequency with which a player gets to the line. Numbers around 0.3 are pretty typical.

FT% is the player's percentage from the free throw line.

Some information about team defensive results is also presented on the team pages. The table below shows an example
of these data for the 2011-2012 Kentucky basketball team.

Shot Type

% of shots

FG%

% of Shots Blocked

Unblocked FG%

At Rim

35%

53%

19%

66%

2pt Jumpers

36%

26%

17%

32%

3pt Shots

29%

32%

4%

33%

The first column lists the three shot location categories. Shots are either recorded as being taken at the rim, as
two point jump shots, or as three point jump shots.

The second column lists the percentage of total opponent field goal attempts that are taken from each of the
three shot locations.

The third column lists the opponent field goal percentages for each shot type.

The fourth column lists the percentage of total attempts of each shot type that were blocked. In this case
we can see that Kentucky blocked a significant percentage of their opponents' two point attempts.

The fifth column lists the opponent field goal percentages for each shot type on unblocked shots.

To help put the offensive and defensive results into context, the table below lists the database averages for
shot locations, location specific field goal percentages, and shot block percentages for the 2011-2012 season.

Shot Data: 2011-2012 Database averages

Shot Type

% of shots

FG%

% of Shots Blocked

Unblocked FG%

At Rim

34%

61%

10%

68%

2pt Jumpers

33%

35%

7%

37%

3pt Shots

33%

34%

1%

34%

In order to help to better understand the types of shots teams and their opponents take, all team pages contain
a table that looks at the initial shots that teams attempt after taking possession. This table covers four types of
possessions: ones that start off of rebounds of opponent misses, ones that start after a score by the opponent,
ones that start from steals, and ones that start from dead ball turnovers. These four types of possessions cover most,
but not all, of the possessions that occur in a basketball game. Shots that occur after the defense fouls are not
included.

The table below is an example, taken from the 2011-2012 Wisconsin team page.

Start of poss

% of initial shots

eFG%

% Shots at rim

FG% at rim

% Shots 2pt Jumpers

FG% 2pt Jumpers

% Shots 3pt

FG% 3pt

Rebound, 0-10 s

12%

59%

21%

81%

25%

44%

54%

38%

Rebound, 11-35 s

28%

50%

24%

66%

35%

35%

41%

36%

Opp score, 0-10 s

3%

50%

11%

100%

23%

50%

66%

28%

Opp score, 11-35 s

36%

47%

21%

53%

35%

33%

45%

37%

Steal, 0-10 s

4%

80%

56%

77%

19%

50%

26%

71%

Steal, 11-35 s

5%

47%

24%

50%

44%

38%

32%

38%

Deadball Turnover, 0-10 s

3%

56%

23%

50%

31%

45%

46%

44%

Deadball Turnover, 11-35 s

9%

54%

27%

45%

36%

44%

37%

47%

The first column lists the different ways that teams can take possession, and further divides the data by the time
after taking possession where an initial shot occurs.

The second column lists the percentage of total initial shots in the table that occurred with the possession/time of
shot category.

The third column lists the effective field goal percentage (eFG%) averaged over all shots within the possession/time of
shot category.

The remaining columns describe the shot location distribution and field goal percentages for each shot type within
the possession/time of shot category.

This article may help provide context for interpreting these data. As a reference, here are the database averages
from the 2011-2012 season.